Postpartum Depression

I want to share just a few thoughts on depression after pregnancy. Some of you may be experiencing, or have older daughters who are experiencing, this strange feeling. There are so many new feelings that come in after the birth of a baby- excitement, fear, anxiety, exhaustion to name a few. You don’t normally think of depression being a thing after having a beautiful child.
The first time I heard of postpartum depression was after the birth of my first child. I don’t know if you remember, but Marie Osmond gave her babysitter the Visa and then drove away. I thought it strange. What was she thinking to leave her children and runaway? Then after my third child, a boy, I felt it. Postpartum depression is more common with the birth of a boy. I had no energy, and I was inexplicably sad. I went to a doctor even and he was no help. All of my tests came back normal. When you are in the midst of depression, you can’t even think straight. It is a very confusing time. Now when I look back, I can see that it was postpartum depression.
When your baby is inside of you, he is gathering everything he needs to survive from your body, especially your Omegas. This depletion combined with the hormone drop and lack of sleep can lead to depression. I suggest Cod Liver Oil, Bergamot or Lavender essential oils, and keep taking your pregnancy vitamins. Get out in the fresh air and sunshine. And if it is really bad, I have heard of doctors giving a progesterone shot to help the hormones. Keep up with your prayer life and tell Jesus about your feelings. I am a huge advocate of breastfeeding for as long as possible. Breastfeeding will help keep you from having a huge, sudden hormone shift. There are also lots of scientific things that happen when you keep your baby close to you. Keep talking to your friends and husband. Let them know that you need help right now. Now is not the time to be Superwoman! Put your cape away for now, and rely on the help of your friends, family and most of all your God.
I want to add that I just read an article about Princess Diana and her postpartum depression.
https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/princess-diana-dealt-with-postpartum-depression.html/

God is Awesome, Life is Short, and This Isn't Home

I have followed Stevie Swift for a while now. I think you would really enjoy her. Lots of uplifting thoughts. I think her free book, Capturing Thoughts, would be great to print and have on hand to remind your child to breath and put things in perspective.
stevieswift.com

The Sources of Sorrow

Depression is widespread today. Depression is extremely misunderstood. Depression can be caused by suffering, pain and sorrow. Let’s recall the difference between evil and suffering. Evil is the absence of a good which should be present, in other words something is missing that should be there. Blindness is a physical evil since the person is missing sight. Vice is a moral evil since the person is missing virtue – the good actions and habits that result in happiness. Suffering is not evil. Suffering is a felt response to something perceived as evil. The purpose of suffering is to alert us that something needs to change.
People always mix up suffering and evil, probably because suffering always indicates the presence of some evil. If we suffer, it’s either because we accurately perceive some present evil, or because we mistakenly think something’s evil when it isn’t – and that very mistake on our part is itself a failure in our judgment. Suffering doesn’t happen without evil. But the correspondence between evil and suffering shouldn’t lead to confusion. Only evil is evil.
Suffering can be good. It can be the right response to a perceived evil (causing you to take your hand out of the fire); and it can motive change in our behavior from vice to virtue. Like changing from a life of greed to generosity.
We must distinguish between pain which begins in the body and sorrow which finds its origin in the soul. Sorrow can cause us to ask the big questions in life and then seek for answers. Sorrow can also motivate us to make a change in the way we live. If we suffer the sorrow of loneliness, we may make the changes to have deep friendships. Sorrow may also help us appreciate happiness even more.
Suffering in the form of pain or sorrow is meant to alert us to a problem and motivate us toward change and ultimately to achieve the purpose of our life - union with God. Suffering can awaken the soul from indifference and sloth, causing it to take our relationship with God more seriously. Suffering can also prevent us from becoming distracted on our journey toward union with God because when we become distracted, as we often do in the summer, then we lose the depth of relationship we had with God when we are in our normal routines, and this lose of relationship results in sorrow. Finally, suffering can empty us of all the addictions and disordered attachments we will not let go of on our own that block us from being filled by God.
Suffering is not evil. Evil is evil. Evil is the problem – whether physical, psychological, or spiritual. Evil is the thing to eliminate at all costs – not suffering.
We eliminate evil by rectifying the absence of the good that ought to be there; not the numbing of the response that motivates positive change.
God allows evil out of respect for our freedom and interdependence, and because He can use evil as an opportunity for good. God gives us the gift of human suffering as a perfection of our nature, and as a motive for heroically moving beyond the weaknesses and defects of our condition: “the more one sorrows on account of a certain thing, the more one strives to shake off sorrow, provided there is a hope of shaking it off.” We are not motivated to change until the pain or sorrow outweighs the pleasure or the comfort.
However, suffering in the form of sorrow, just like any other good or any other passion, can also become disordered. It can be counter-productive. It can inhibit, instead of inciting, the process of making things better. Such is the case with “excessive sorrow, which consumes the soul: for such sorrow paralyzes the soul, and hinders it from shunning evil...” There is the danger of a suffering that cripples the will rather than empowering it – and this is depression.
It’s not necessarily immoral or imprudent to use drugs to help with depression, but before we get to that we need to appreciate the character of depression as a natural response to significant pain and sorrow. Depression shouldn’t just be dismissed as a kind of senseless short in the cerebral circuit. If there’s no sign of a body problem, depression alerts us to the presence of a deeper problem, a problem our sorrow is urging us to find and address.
Depression has a cause. One should look for the cause, identify and seek to remedy it. The immediate cause of depression is sorrow. Sorrow as the felt response to a perceived evil – something is wrong or missing in my life that causes sorrow. The first step is to ask: what is the cause of my sorrow? in general there are four causes of sorrow: first sorrow is caused by the loss of some good we need to be happy such as health, a relationship, achievement, profession, or work just to name a few. Second, sorrow comes from looking at a broken world – broken people, broken families, broken Government, environment, ect; third, we experience sorrow because people are broken, beginning with myself. The reality or nature of a person is that we need virtue to be happy and when virtue is lacking we have vice that makes us vicious and sorrowful and finally depressed. Finally, we were made for union with God and we are not perfectly united with Him yet and that is a cause of sorrow and longing.
How can we remedy sorrow and thus depression? Identify and rectify what was broken or missing. However, if that which is broken or missing cannot be changed, there is still a way forward; unite your suffering to Christ for your own perfecting and to help him save others. This provides the greatest meaning, purpose and power to your suffering and enables you to do the greatest good.

Mike Scherschligt prays a meditative rosary every day. He calls us to be Apostles of the Rosary.
https://schooloffaith.com/daily-devotions

Revelation

I had a bit of a revelation this morning during my prayer time. I am a lot like the Israelites and Moses. The reading is Numbers 11: 4b-15. It starts out, “The children of Israel lamented…” They are not just lamenting in a kind of sad depressed way; they are complaining too. They are tired of Manna and want some meat. I have always pictured Manna as a kind of light bread/shaved coconut type food. I thought it sounded pretty good. I had never heard of the description which is, “Manna was like coriander seed and had the color of resin. When they had gone about and gathered it up, the people would grind it between millstones or pound it in a mortar, then cook it in a pot and make it into loaves, which tasted like cakes made with oil.” That seems like a lot of work to me. Not the flaky, light ready to eat snack that I was thinking. The Israelites complain, instead of being thankful that they have some sort of food. They lament instead of asking politely if Moses could ask God for some diversity to the menu. How many times have I complained about gifts that I don’t feel quite measure up to what I wanted? My children are such gifts, but in my mind sometimes their life doesn’t quite measure up to what I think it should be. Obviously, the problem is not with my child or God, but with me and my lack of appreciation.

Then Moses goes to God and complains about the people complaining. He takes on the burden of the people instead of giving the burden to God. “Was it I who conceived all these people? Or was it I who gave them birth, that you tell me to carry them at my bosom, like a foster father carrying the infant, to the land you have promised under oath to their fathers? Where can I get meat to give all this people? I cannot carry all this people by myself, for they are too heavy for me.” But God provided the Manna, Moses didn’t. So it seems that Moses is turning to himself, putting the burden on himself to provide, when it is God who will provide for us. How often have I cried to God in a similar way? Has God ever asked me to carry these burdens by myself?

Today, I thank God for all His many blessings. I thank Him for my family and my children. I thank Him for creating us. I thank Him for the gift of my Faith. I ask him to help me with all my burdens of the day. I ask Him especially to help me carry these burdens that give me a heavy heart.